Love Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

situation.
    “Exactly,” Spencer agreed. “I’m focusing on other things for the foreseeable future. Women are more trouble than they’re worth. I was only tying up loose ends where you were concerned.”
    “Uh-huh.” I watched through the window as more of Uncle Harry’s friends lit up their cigars and blew out smoke. Again I felt anxiety, but I didn’t know why.
    “Anyway, I don’t have a lot of time to follow you around like a puppy dog,” Spencer continued. “I’ve got to handle all the Apple Days events, I’ve just hired a new detective, who’s on a probation period, and there’s a wild rumor about mad cow disease in town I need to squelch.”
    “Mad what?”
    I spotted one of Uncle Harry’s friends put a cigar in his mouth, grab the crystal lighter off the coffee table, and disappear down the hall toward the game room. Suddenly I realized why I was anxious.
    “I hope Marty found the toilet,” I said.
    That’s when Uncle Harry’s house blew up.

Chapter 3

    I love movies. Nowadays I watch movies on my television at home, but I pop some popcorn, rip open a bag of M&M’s, and it’s just like I’m at the Cannes Regal 4. My favorite part of a movie is the “meet cute.” Just as you would expect, that’s when the couple meets for the first time in a cute way. Like Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. They met-cute in their movies. Every fakakta client who walks through our door wants a meet cute. They’re superstitious about the circumstances in which they meet. They figure if they meet under normal circumstances, it can’t be true love. Let me tell you something, dolly, it’s better to not meet-cute. Sometimes the cute ain’t that cute. Sometimes the cute just means trouble. And that doesn’t sound good—the meet trouble
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    Lesson 13 ,
Matchmaking Advice from Your Grandma Zelda
    IT WASN’T a huge explosion. We found out later that it was muted because Marty’s oxygen tank was running near empty. Luckily for Marty, he was safely in the all-marble bathroom, halfway through the sports pages, when the explosion happened, taking the poker table with it and making mincemeat of the erotic tapestries. Uncle Harry’s other friend miraculouslymade it out with only burns on his lighter hand, since he had ignited it far from his face.
    From outside on the balcony, the explosion was scary enough, and we didn’t know the extent of the damage. But it was the fireball we witnessed hurtling from the hall toward the living room that made Spencer throw me to safety—which in his mind was over the balcony, away from the house.
    He tossed me like I was a horseshoe at a company picnic, then ran in the direction of the fireball, bent on saving Lucy, Uncle Harry, and the rest, I assumed. Meanwhile, I flew over the railing toward the depths below and my certain death. My life flashed before my eyes. It took two seconds, which reminded me I was way too young to die.
    I flailed my arms and legs in a fit of survival instinct and, with a bit of acrobatics worthy of any Cirque du Soleil performer, latched on to a piece of railing that ran along the underside of the balcony, and I hung there like a bat.
    I was in shock, surprised that I wasn’t lying at the bottom of the canyon with every bone broken, and scared out of my mind that my grip on the rail would fail at any moment. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t get sound out.
    After a few seconds, I heard footsteps on the balcony above me.
    “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! You killed her. You squashed her like a bug,” Lucy wailed like her best friend had died. I supposed that was just what she believed.
    “Gladie!” Spencer called. He rarely used my name, preferring the nickname he had given me in honor ofmy pink underpants. He called me over and over before it dawned on me that I should answer.
    “I’m here,” I squeaked. “I’m here, and I’m going to die,” I added, so they would fully grasp the situation and move quicker to my rescue.
    “Darlin’!” Lucy